Education Minister Randolph Horton last night promised to "blaze a trail" and ensure a better future for Bermuda's schools.

In a passionate speech in the House of Assembly, the Minister unveiled new legislation he described as a "pivotal milestone in Bermuda's public education system".

The Education Amendment Act 2008 comes after last year's damning Hopkins Report recommended a huge overhaul of the Island's failing schools system.

The new law:

• Improves accountability — with underperforming principals and teachers facing the sack;

• Creates a Commissioner of Education to supervise and evaluate education performance;

l Raises the school leaving age from 16 to 18.

"I will steer the Ministry of Education towards the realisation of its noble mission — a mission for the future of Bermuda, with young people at its core," said Mr. Horton.

Speaking about the importance of good teaching, he said: "Teachers will no longer be able to hide ineffectiveness. He or she must improve or leave the system."

Mr. Horton, a former Warwick Secondary School principal, said teachers should adopt the motto: "Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. If students fail, we have failed."

Bemoaning the failure of people to think outside the box, he added: "We must today open up our minds to new ideas and work together for the best of our students."

And he said he found it "shameful" recently when he went into a room of people earning $200,000 salaries and 98 percent of them were non-Bermudians.

"We want to provide a basis on which a greater proportion of our population can take advantage of these opportunities," he said.

"I want to walk in that place and at least 60 percent of those people are Bermudians. Then I can smile and then we can all feel good.

"It drove me. It woke me up and gives me more impetus to drive and stay on this journey of providing this education system in Bermuda that is second to none."

Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons followed by saying Mr. Horton's speech sounded more like a leadership speech than a speech on the Education Amendment Act.

Dr. Gibbons said mistakes had been made over the years, including by United Bermuda Party Governments, and that it was vital Government gets it right this time.

He added that the Hopkins Report's verdict that the education system was in "meltdown" meant there was little time to waste.

"Just because your parents can't afford to send you to private school doesn't mean you can't have a good education," said Dr. Gibbons.

He criticised the length of time it has taken to set up a joint select committee to help implement the report's recommendations, and the sparse communication with teachers and the union.

And he said the new Act was adding an extra layer of bureaucracy with the creation of the Commissioner. He said successful systems in other countries put schools at the centre of the system.

The best model, said Dr. Gibbons, was to: "Get the best teachers; get the best out of the teachers; and step in when pupils start to lag behind."

Dr. Gibbons added that he had hoped there would be more said about technical education and provisions to make information more public.

The Premier Ewart Brown then got up to laud the amendment calling it "landmark" and "historic" coming just months since the Hopkins report.

An opposition member corrected him that it had been over a year and the Premier clarified: "that's why I said months."

He added that the board of education used to be toothless, but hoped the new amendments would give them more responsibility and strength.

Opposition Whip and Shadow Attorney General John Barritt said he had hoped the legislation would reference the Hopkins report more to ensure things were happening.

Adding that he wanted to know what the Permanent Secretary would do now that there was a Commissioner of Education. "Are we replacing one bureaucracy with another?" Mr. Barritt added.

PLP backbencher Lovitta Foggo defended the Education Minister last night saying it took guts to come to the House with legislation that would have to be amended.

"It takes, I guess, gust to come here and present this, but it shows were are moving in the right direction."

Donte Hunt, the Shadow Minister of Family Development and Social Rehabilitation, also questioned the amount of bureaucracy that was being added to the education system.

"It seems to be there is more bureaucracy. We are putting more levels in the legislation. We need to localise the control because principals now they do. They live it every day," he said.

Government backbencher Neletha Butterfield, speaking from her position as an educator, said she was concerned about increasing the leaving age from school for children from 16 to 18.

She said: "Some just don't have it. We have to be realistic. Let's do something which those who are good with their hands. Right now the students don't finish school until they are 18.

"If they don't want to stay there that long we have to put something in place to let them out of it. I hope that is just a housekeeping thing there."